


The Cake is Important

by equivalencept



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blue Team, F/M, Family, Fluff, Gen, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 04:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13228113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equivalencept/pseuds/equivalencept
Summary: After being apart for nearly a year, Blue Team and Veta Lopis's team are able to celebrate New Year's Eve together.





	The Cake is Important

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be published on December 31st, but oh well. Lots of fluff and team bonding in this! Thanks for reading!

“This is so fancy.” Fred stared down at the meal the waiter had placed in front of him before leaving. “This is so fancy I don’t know what to do with it.” 

“I don’t know if beer straight from a can is fancy, Lieutenant,” Mark said. 

Fred flicked his fingers at him. “Somebody else brought it to me. I didn’t have to wait in line for it or buy it straight from the store. That’s fancy enough for me.” 

“I don’t remember the last time we had food that wasn’t an MRE or from a mess hall.” Kelly, sitting on Fred’s right, was already digging into her own food. 

“Maybe when we were thirteen? When we commandeered the New Year Eve’s feast from Camp Hathcock’s main base. Exactly thirty years ago, now that I think about it. We got a lot of nice seafood.” Linda, chin resting on one hand, was looking not at her own food but instead at her two teammates directly across from her. 

“Really?” Ash said from Linda’s left. “I don’t think we did anything like that on Onyx.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure you all were perfect well-behaved angels,” Kelly said. Ash grinned at her in response. 

Veta could tell her team was happy to see Blue Team again, just as the Spartan IIs were happy to see the young ferrets. Shortly after the Tuwa mission, in January 2554, they had met up to celebrate the Gammas’s graduation from the Mill, but while they had erratically kept in contact through messages, they hadn’t worked a mission together in over a year. That had changed two weeks ago, when Osman called them together to retrieve the Martian governor’s son from kidnappers who were holding him ransom on Tribute. The mission was successful, and they were enjoying a day of leave before going their separate ways again. 

“God, I completely forgot about robbing the feast from Camp Hathcock,” Fred said, finally beginning to eat. 

“Probably because you didn’t eat any of it, since you were allergic to seafood,” Linda said through a mouthful of food. 

Veta, sitting across from Fred, looked up from her own meal. “You can’t eat seafood?” 

“Well,” Fred waved his hand expansively. “I used to be allergic to shellfish. I got treatment to repress the allergy, of course, but I was so scared of going into anaphylactic shock again that I avoided all kinds of seafood during bootcamp. Which pissed Mendez off.” 

“ ‘What the hell do you think you’re going to do if you get stuck in an ocean, trainee?’ ” Kelly mimicked. 

“But you love it so much now,” Olivia, who sat at the head of the table between Fred and Veta, gestured to his jambalaya. 

“Mhm. Immunotherapy is a thing of beauty.” 

“So,” Veta swallowed her bite of food and continued. “You mentioned a New Year’s feast at that base you stole from, and we were able to get leave today in part because it’s New Year’s Eve. Is New Year’s really important in the UNSC? I don’t remember that from last year.” 

“Not really, no. Well, no more than the other holidays. It was really important on Reach, though,” Fred grew quieter at this last statement, and Veta felt her stomach drop. She had meant to keep the conversation light. 

“Luckily,” Kelly smiled at Fred, “Tribute took up most of the survivors of Reach, so we get to relive all of its glorious traditions tonight.” She gestured to the overview of Casbah, Tribute’s rebuilt capital, that could be seen from their table on the balcony. 

“Traditions like watching fireworks,” Linda said. 

Fred smiled at them. “And eating cake together with family.” Fred looked across to Veta and added, “New Year’s Eve was much more of a family holiday on Reach than it is in other places.” 

“And us Spartans don’t celebrate birthdays or anything, so New Year’s is the only time we get cake. The cake is important,” Kelly added. 

“Aren’t there bakeries and restaurants and such on military bases?” 

“On some of them, yes. But that’s really only on permanent, open bases. Most of the time, we’re on the front lines or on ships, where there’s only the mess hall,” Fred replied. A lull in the conversation followed as they all continued to eat. 

“Hopefully, Seo-Joon is enjoying the holiday with his mothers,” Olivia said, naming the teenager they had rescued. 

“Mm, he’s probably still on the ship back to Mars at this point, but hopefully he’ll be there on New Year’s day,” Fred said. 

Veta smiled. The mood of the dinner had returned to being light and relaxed. 

“A very successful mission overall. And congrats on not losing your armor this time, Lieutenant,” Veta said, causing Linda to snort. Fred stuck his tongue out at her. “So, you all celebrated New Year’s 2553 together, right? How was that?” 

“Well, we didn’t actual get to celebrate it on the 31st or the 1st because we were, uh, busy. So we celebrated it later, in March,” Mark said. 

“ _March_? How busy were you?” 

“Honestly, not that much,” Ash said, “but, y’know, forerunner shenanigans.” 

“That’s one way of putting it,” Linda muttered. Veta made a face. ‘Forerunner shenanigans’ reminded her of her past experience with the ancient species’s technology while simultaneously telling her she wasn’t going to get any more information. “So you celebrated it in March?” 

“Yeah, it was fun! We didn’t do much, but we had cake. Honestly, I think it was just an excuse to eat cake,” Olivia said. Kelly nodded. 

“Or,” Fred started, “we celebrated it late because it’s the only holiday we participate in, and it’s nice to spend time with family - ” 

“Fred, I estimate that we’ve spent seventy-two percent of our lives within a hundred meters of each other, and that’s including the first six years of our lives. I don’t think it’s possible to spend any more time together,” Kelly said. “Cake, however, we only get once a year. We did it for the cake.” 

“Celebrating with family is great. Celebrating family with cake is better,” Linda said. 

“ _Cake_ , Lieutenant,” Ash added with emphasis. Fred huffed and gestured defeat. 

“We can get more cake tonight, since you all love it so much,” Veta said. 

“There wasn’t any on the menu,” Fred said. 

“Oh, so you looked in advance?” Kelly said. 

“ _Listen -_ ” 

Veta cut him off. “Some restaurants have a different menu for desserts. We can ask the waiter when she gets back.” 

Thirty minutes later, they each had a slice of cake and had gotten up from their table to wander around the balcony. It was a rather small balcony. There were only two tables on it, and the second one was empty, so Veta and her group were alone. _Very nice overlook of the city, too_ , Veta thought. The railing went up to her chin, but over it she could see most of downtown Casbah. She smiled. People were already setting off backyard fireworks, which she was sure wasn’t legal. From her vantage point, she could also see the space elevator. The bottom kilometer of the elevator had been adorned with green, blue, and silver lights, the colors of the Tribute flag. There was a straight break in the lights, going all the way down. Apparently, at a minute to midnight, an empty cart would start to descend, only stopping when the new year arrived. 

Veta glanced at her watch, and toggled it to Casbah Standard Time. Midnight would occur in almost five minutes, which was 2043 hours Military Standard Time. 

“That’s good. We have enough time to see the ‘ball’ drop before me, Linda, and Kelly have to leave.” Fred had appeared at her side. 

Veta turned towards him. “Savoring that, aren’t you?” she said, looking down at his slice that only had two bites taken out of it. Fred only hummed in response. 

“Oh, god. Did we ever tell you?” Veta said. 

The railing she was leaning against was imbedded into a short wall of concrete about a half meter tall. Veta jumped up onto the top of this wall, jamming her feet between the rails to stay balanced. This put her on the same eye level as Fred. “Did I ever tell you about the Gammas and the cake? I know they wouldn’t fess up to it on their own.” When Fred only quirked an eyebrow in response, Veta continued. “When I was getting them adjusted to what civilian life is like, they found out that they could buy a cake. Without waiting for a special occasion or anything. So they bought one. It was a sheet cake, about thirty by forty centimeters.” 

“Oh no. Did they try to eat all of it?” 

“Yep,” Veta said, drawing the word out. “Mark was smart enough to stop when he was full, at least. Ash and ‘Livi, however - ” 

“ _Oh no._ Me and Linda did that - it must have been during another New Year’s Eve, actually. I think we might have puked into ‘29.” 

Veta laughed softly, and the conversation lapsed. Fred shoved a chunk of cake into his mouth in the silence. “Sowhap - ” he swallowed, “sorry, so what do people on Gao do to celebrate the new year?” 

“Get trashed and set fireworks off.” 

“Okay, so what did you typically do?” 

“Get trashed.” 

Fred huffed. “Alright - ” 

Veta smiled. “Just joking, Fred. I mostly just did work, or more rarely went out with friends. Or I just treated it like a normal work day.” 

“That’s not much fun.” 

“I’m sure lots of people would say that about what _you_ typically do. Hmm. Well, when I was a kid, we used to go to my grandmother’s house before she passed. We would go to a field to watch the fireworks the town put on. New Year’s is celebrated based on Gao’s orbit, which is 394 days. It’s not matched up with the UNSC. It also occurs during the middle of summer where my town was, which was nice.” 

“Reach’s orbit is twenty-five days longer than Earth’s, but New Year’s Eve was still observed according to MST, so we celebrated it in a different month every year. New Year’s 2519 was freezing, but New Year’s 2525 was really nice.” Fred grew thoughtful. “I think you can - if the restaurant’s not blocking it - ” Fred twisted to look back over the top of the restaurant. His eyes skimmed the sky for several moments. “It should be the brightest - yes, there it is.” He pointed up at sky. Veta shifted her stance between the rails to better see what Fred was pointing at. His finger was angled at a bright star, bright enough she could see it despite all the light pollution. “That’s Reach, if what Tribute’s astronomy guide said is correct,” Fred said quietly. 

Veta was unsure if she was stepping onto a minefield, but she still asked, just as quietly as Fred spoke, “What do you remember best from New Year’s on Reach?” 

Fred seemed reminiscent, not mournful, when he answered, “Probably the night going into 2525, now that Linda reminded me of it. As she mentioned, we commandeered food from the officers. I didn’t eat any of the seafood, but there was still side dishes and desserts. It was one of the last nights all of us were together, without any extra assignments or missions to prepare for.” He added softly, “It was nice.” 

“It sounds nice,” Veta said quietly. She glance back across the horizon. Seeing the space elevator, she nudged Fred. “Cart’s about to drop.” 

“Oh!” He turned back towards her and downtown Casbah. Veta saw the Gammas and Kelly and Linda turn to look at the elevator, too. At a minute to midnight, the cart lit up with bright silver and white lights, and started to plummet. From their vantage point, it appeared to be moving slowly, though Veta knew it was falling at 60km per hour. Veta heard voices calling, counting down to the New Year, from the restaurant behind her and from the streets below. The Spartans around her also took up the call. 

“ _3...2...1_ \- ” 

“Oyu, 2525!” Veta called out. She heard Fred, Kelly, and Linda shout something similar in Hungarian.

The cart came to a stop meters above the ground, and fireworks started going off on the ridge behind it. They were far enough away that they couldn't hear the resulting booms. Minutes later, when everything had started to quiet down, Fred turned to Veta. 

“I'm sorry, but we have to go now.” 

“Duty calls,” Veta said softly. 

Fred hesitated. After a few more moments, he asked, “Can I hug you?” Veta nodded and opened her arms wide, and Fred stepped forward into them. Veta wrapped her arms across his shoulders, resting her temple against his, and Fred looped his arms around her waist. 

“I’m going to miss you,” she whispered. 

Instead of answering, Fred turned his face towards her. She froze for half a second, but he only pressed his forehead against hers. Veta sighed and hugged him tighter. After a few seconds, he pulled away. 

“Goodbye, Veta,” he called back softly, as he moved towards his teammates. 

Veta waved to him as he left, a slight ache in her chest. 

“See you later, Fred.”


End file.
